Five Tech Trends to Look Out for in 2013

2013 is a year of harsh change for the tech industry. We have just experienced 5 years of rapid, untidy and troublesome innovation, and mobile phones and tables aren't the future any more -- they are the present.

Effective mobile products linked to broadband-speed cell systems are actually a day to day reality, and it will take bigger screen or faster processor to create an effect this year. Consider 2013 as the year of refinement and reckoning.

Listed here are five large developments to keep close track of:

1. The outlook of Microsoft

Microsoft continues to be very candid about "missing an generation" of mobile innovation after Apple introduced the apple iPhone, and 2012 involved a furious catch-up effort: the company released the completely rethought Home windows 8 for Computers, Home windows RT for tablets and Home windows Phone 8 for mobile phones. Boss Steve Ballmer also repositioned Microsoft as Bing a "products and services" company and he introduced the Surface Tablets, both created by Microsoft itself to contend with traditional PC companies for example Dell and Sony.

That's lots of bold bets, and everyone has to repay in 2013. Laptop Computer era has ended, and Microsoft needs to show customers it's something to provide inside a world centered by tablets and mobile phones. Home windows 8 and Surface sales have been slow to date, so we'll observe how the company does. There's one all-but-guaranteed bright spot though: a brand new Xbox 360 will be introduced this year.

2. Can Apple get its software mojo back?

Apple found success this year by presenting an apple iPhone having a bigger screen as well as an iPad having a more compact screen, but it has to pay attention to software in 2013 to stand above its competition.

Apple Boss Tim Prepare has released two apple iPhones since overtaking for Jobs, and each of them have include buggy, incomplete flagship software features -- the apple iPhone 4S released using the charming-but-not-so-helpful Siri voice assistant, and also the apple iPhone 5 released having a homegrown Maps application so buggy that Tim had to apologize to clients.

Meanwhile, archival Google has started shipping the best apple iPhone applications around -- I have changed the majority of Apple's applications on my small apple iPhone homescreen with Google-built substitutes for example Gmail, Google Maps, Chrome and YouTube. The majority of my peers in the market did exactly the same. That's a bad sign.

Cook just fired Scott Forstall, the questionable mind of iOS development who presided over Siri and Maps. Designer Jony Ive has become responsible for both software and hardware, so we'll find out if the organization can restore its status for condition-of-the-art software design using the next apple iPhone and iPad.

3. Will Amazon go face to face with Apple and Google?

Amazon Boss Shaun Bezos was very blunt as he introduced the brand new Amazon Kindle Fire HD in September -- he introduced it as the "best tablet available on the market. Which was an apparent shot at Apple and also the iPad, but Amazon's real competitor may be Google, especially as the marketplace for books, music and films moves entirely online.

There is no way Amazon wants people searching on Google to locate content and items from multiple sources. Amazon really wants to build an ecosystem so robust you won't ever wish to leave. Think about what Apple did for music using the iPod device and iTunes and}imagine Amazon doing that for everything.

However the Amazon Kindle Fire items aren't sufficiently good enough to contend with the iPad yet, and Amazon does not have the help it must contend with Google either. It must offer e-mail services and a social experience wouldn't hurt either. That is a big undertaking, but Amazon is among the couple of companies using the scale, infrastructure and assets to get it done. The gossips are becoming even louder. We'll decide if Amazon considers a large relocate 2013.

4. Can Facebook develop?

2013 will be Facebook's first year as a public company, also it needs to prove that it's really a stable, reliable investment. That's very difficult task: Facebook determined how to earn money selling advertisements on its website just as the majority of its customers switched to smartphone and tablet applications.

Selling advertisements on mobile is not as easy, and Facebook needs to learn how to display relevant advertisements to smartphone customers without crossing the privacy line -- a line about which customers are progressively worried. But Boss Mark Zuckerberg needs to response to his traders now, and also the pressure cross that line increases every single day that Facebook is not earning enough money.

5. Can Google take Android back from Samsung and also wireless service providers?

Here's the brutal truth from the smart phone market: the only real firms that make anything are Apple and Samsung. Almost every other company, from HTC to Sony to Google's own Motorola, is battling. And that is a massive problem for Google.

Apple clearly creates its very own software for the apple iPhone, but Samsung's phones all operate a personalized form of Google's open-source Android, and Samsung is so dominant that it could split off and begin building its very own operating system, just like Amazon did using the Amazon Kindle Fire. That might be an enormous blow to Google.

Google also needs to try to limit the influence of wireless service providers on Android. Companies for example AT&T and Verizon are too pleased to stock up Android products with unnecessary crapware and bloatware that it ruin the consumer experience while stalling important software updates.

The bitterness between Google and also the service providers has become so deep that Google's new Nexus 4 flagship device does not come with an LTE radio the service providers simply wouldn't cooperate.

That's in stark contrast towards the apple iPhone experience, which is pristine and controlled by Apple from the beginning. This is the control that irritates many customers but offers a feeling of support and security towards the relaxation of Apple's countless clients. There is a happy balance between your two extremes, and Google must think it is before Android starts to slide away entirely.